2010-11 Montrail Ultra Cup

As promised, we’re giving you the scoop on the 2010-11 Montrail Ultra Cup just as soon as we got it. There are four noteworthy changes for the upcoming season. Each change will add to the calender, competition, and cold, hard cash.

2010-11 Montrail Ultra Cup Schedule Regular readers will know the first update. Montrail added the Run Rabbit Run 50 miler in Steamboat Springs to the schedule. Otherwise, the schedule remains unchanged.

8/21/10 – Where’s Waldo 100k (Willamette Pass, OR) [Entry open until August 1, but only 9 slots left as of July 27]

Rules Update If a runner wins Run Rabbit Run or any other race in the series, he or she will receive 15 bonus points. The 15 points is big deal in this series. As a quick reminder, points are award based on race distance at a rate of a point per mile and the ratio of the gender winning time to a person’s time. (In other words, if Geoff Roes wins Western States again next year and takes 80% of the time it takes me to finish, I would receive 80 points from the race while he’d earn 100 points.) For a full explanation of series’ rules and scoring, see our preview of the 2009-10 Montrail Ultra Cup.

While winners benefit from the first rule change, other top runners will benefit from the institution of a more flexible Western States entry criteria. This past season, the top two men and women at each MUC race of 50 miles or longer earned the right to run in this year’s Western States 100. If they already had an entry into Western States or didn’t except the MUC entry, no one else was eligible to receive that slot. However, for the upcoming MUC season an unaccepted Western States slot not needed or accepted by the top two finishers at a particular race will slide down to the third place finisher, but no further.

Prize UpdateSome will find it hard to believe, but this will already be the 10th Montrail Ultra Cup. In honor of this occurrence, Montrail is digging deep and doubling the cash purse to a total of $16,000 with men’s and women’s winners grabbing $5,000 each. Here’s the full prize breakdown.

$5,000, Montrail shoes, Mountain Hardwear Fluid pack, nuun tablets

$2,000, Montrail shoes, Mountain Hardwear Fluid pack, nuun tablets

$1,000, Montrail shoes, Mountain Hardwear Fluid pack, nuun tablets

Montrail shoes, Mountain Hardwear Fluid pack, nuun tablets

Montrail sandals, Mountain Hardwear Fluid pack, nuun tablets

Call for Comments and Questions So what do y’all think of the changes for the next Montrail Ultra Cup?

There are 5 comments

I'm happy to see that the Ultra Cup is getting bigger in number of races, when it was only 6 races it was so hard to participate. Now it's getting more convenient. Hopefully there will be even more Ultra Cup races one day. I think 20 would be a good number and allow even more folks to participate

I won't be in the running for the $5000 cash prize but those who will are probably thrilled about this.

While it's great that the Steamboat 50 (a fantastic race) has been added to the series, I'm hearing that the race is already sold out. Hate to sound like an old whining fart, but one wonders why these announcements can't be made a little earlier so that people interested in competing could plan a little further in advance, or at least have a chance of registering for the race once the announcemnent is made…

Kudos to Montrail for upping the ante on the prize purse. Hopefully it'll attract some solid competition.

Wow-that 15 point bonus for winning is huge! I figure every point is worth about a 9 minute head start at WS for men and nearly 11 minutes for women. 15 points equates to more than a 2 hour advantage going into WS! At Bandera last year I was only 3.5 minutes behind the winner (99%) but under the new system would have gotten 26% fewer points than the winner.

The new system certainly rewards champions (which may be what a championship series should do), but it is going to make it nearly impossible for consistent "second tier" runners to be in the mix.

We regret to not having more time to let people know about Run Rabbit Run 50, but it was out of our control. This was a late addition to the 10/11 series. As soon as we could, we made an announcement about this before it sold out, and before the press release went out. See this post on July 13, 7-10 days before it sold out, and two weeks before this press release. Sorry we couldn't get the word out sooner than that, but we hope RRR remains in the series for many years to come, and that the limit for the race can grow over the years to accomodate more of you.

Vermont 50, Bandera 100k/50k, Mt. Cheaha 50k, Ice Age 50 are all easier to get into and with no lotteries.

See you all on the trails! [Broken link to July 2010 Montrail blogpost removed]